ATLANTA (AP) — A federal judge will resentence reality star Julie Chrisley on Wednesday after an appeals court imposed a new sentence for her conviction on charges of bank fraud and tax evasion.
Chrisley and her husband, Todd Chrisley, rose to fame through their show “Chrisley Knows Best,” which followed their close-knit family and extravagant lifestyle. A jury in 2022 found them guilty of conspiring to defraud local banks of more than $30 million in fraudulent loans. The Chrisleys were also found guilty of tax evasion by concealing their income.
The couple's accountant, Peter Tarantino, was tried with them and convicted of conspiracy to defraud the United States and knowingly filing false tax returns.
A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Court of Appeals in June upheld the convictions of the Chrisleys and Tarantino, but found a legal error in the way the trial judge calculated Julie Chrisley's sentence by holding her responsible for the entire bank fraud scheme. So the appeals panel sent her case back to the lower court for resentencing.
Federal prosecutors argued in a court document this month that the judge should give Julie Chrisley the same seven-year sentence she originally imposed. Chrisley's attorneys asked for a total sentence of no more than five years, writing that her two youngest children had difficulty “functioning on a daily basis” in her absence.
Before the Chrisleys became reality TV stars, they and a former business partner filed false documents with Atlanta-area banks to obtain fraudulent loans, prosecutors said during the trial. They accused the couple of spending lavishly on luxury cars, designer clothes, real estate and travel, and of using new fraudulent loans to pay off old ones. Todd Chrisley then filed for bankruptcy, prosecutors said, and walked away with more than $20 million in unpaid loans.
Julie Chrisley was sentenced to seven years in federal prison and Todd Chrisley was given 12 years. The couple was also ordered to pay $17.8 million in restitution.
On appeal, the Chrisleys challenged aspects of their convictions and sentences, and Tarantino requested that his conviction be overturned and a new trial held.
The appeals court judges found only one flaw in the case. They ruled that the trial judge held Julie Chrisley responsible for the entire bank fraud that began in 2006. The panel found that neither the prosecutors nor the trial judge “provided any specific evidence that she was involved in 2006.”
The panel found sufficient evidence that she committed fraud over several years from 2007.
Todd Chrisley, 56, is in a federal minimum-security camp in Pensacola, Florida, with a release date of September 2032, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons website. Julie Chrisley, 51, was held in a facility in Lexington, Kentucky.
Tarantino, 62, is in a halfway house in the Atlanta area and is expected to be released in March, the prison organization's website said.
